Episode 6: Attack of the Amazon Women
Thundarr, Ariel and Ookla are headed for a relaxing day at the beach when they come across two tribes of blue-skinned Amazon women fighting with laser-shooting tridents. One tribe is trying to get the other to rejoin them under the rule of a female wizard named Strya, but the other tribe refuses so naturally the wizard-hating heroes join in with the resistance. With Thundarr’s manly assistance the wizard positive tribe is driven back, and they dive off the cliff to their shark steeds waiting in the ocean below. Ariel surmises that the Amazons must be aquatic beings, and the heroes are invited back to the land lubbing Amazons’ base of operations, Mount Rushmore.
Fiona, leader of the good Amazons, explains that she was once queen of the aquatic tribe until Strya came along to build an Amazon army capable of attacking land as well as sea. Proving himself a chauvinist pig Mok Ookla laughs off this suggestion, but Ariel suitably reprimands him for underestimating women. Fiona asks Ariel to be their wizard to combat Strya, and Ariel graciously accepts, with Thundarr and Oolka signing on as Ariel’s personal guard. The heroes are given masks that will allow them to breathe underwater and despite Ookla’s protest they dive into the ocean to attack Strya’s undersea stronghold. Strya sends her shark riders to attack them but when they fall to Thundarr’s somehow still functional sun sword she calls to release the Kraken — using that exact phrase from Clash of the Titans — which is a giant mutant octopus that shoots lasers from its tentacles. Ariel is wounded but saved by Fiona’s Amazons, and Thundarr and Ookla drive the Kraken back into its holding tank but are taken prisoner by Strya’s magic and, after refusing to divulge the location of Fiona’s Mount Rushmore base, are lowered into a “jaws of steel” death trap. And that’s all before the first commercial break!
Strya, who reveals herself as a shark-toothed monster, learns of a weapon in a nearby abandoned military base and leaves Thundarr and Ookla, giving them the opportunity to escape the death trap. After an extended chase through Strya’s lair the heroes escape and hightail it back to Mount Rushmore, and after a sexy welcome home from Ariel they warn Fiona of Strya’s mysterious secret weapon. The heroes and Fiona go back underwater to find the weapon, and after Ariel interrogates a captured shark rider with her magic they find the weapon — a 2,000 year old nuclear missile — in an airtight sunken hangar sealed by encrusted barnacles. They somehow gain entrance to the hangar without flooding it (not explained) but find it guarded by a giant spider, and Thundarr vanquishes it by crushing it under a webbed up jet fighter he cuts loose with the sun sword.
They return to Mount Rushmore with the missile to disarm it but in a shocking twist it is revealed to be a Trojan horse carrying Strya and her Amazons who attack on flying vehicles. Ariel and Strya face off on a one-on-one wizard battle, and when sexist Thundarr steps in to fight Ariel tells him that only her magic can save the day, which it does by repelling Strya’s magic back on her. Defeated Strya falls off Mount Rushmore into the sea, Fiona regains her crown as Queen of the Amazons and Ariel jokingly thanks Thundarr and Ookla for their help in a humorous diminishing of their contributions to this insane adventure.
Phew, this one was packed! Not the tightest storyline and possibly one giant monster too many (if such a thing can be said) but the awkward sexual politics made it a wild ride well worth taking. 5 stars.